The first two complaints were filed in 2003 by the Council of New Jersey Chiropractors (CNJC) and Doctors for Excellence in Chiropractic Education (DECE). In the DECE complaint USDOE found that CCE failed to provide information requested by CNJC and had several conflicts of interest in its Board of Directors which had interfered with accreditation decisions. The outcome of the second complaint by CNJC has not yet been determined.

The third and most serious complaint was filed in 2004 by a 1996 graduate of the Life University College of Chiropractic named Allen Botnick from Plainfield, NJ. Dr. Botnick established that CCE violated USDOE accreditation requirements by not investigating his complaint in a fair and timely manner after nine months had passed without the agency taking action on a complaint pertaining to Life University in Marietta, Georgia. The complaint detailed numerous violations at the school including: the use of anti-medical propaganda in course texts, unapproved diagnosis procedures, exaggeration of the benefits of chiropractic care, overutilization of x-rays, inadequate clinical experiences, unqualified faculty and the promotion of unethical practice management procedures. After discovering the problems Dr. Botnick surrendered all chiropractic licenses. He refuses to practice, stating that his education did not teach him to identify and treat patient complaints in a safe, effective and ethical manner.

One particularly disturbing section of Botnick’s complaint describes three individuals at Life University who died as a result of ignoring obvious disease symptoms and shunning medical care. All three displayed unrealistic expectations for chiropractic care. The first student, Julian Ho, ignored a medical doctor's warning to seek medical treatment after showing signs of diabetes and later died as a result of the disease. Another student named Louis Menendez died from a heart attack arising from untreated heart disease. The final case involved a chiropractic technique instructor named John Grostic who died after ignoring a medical doctor's warning to seek treatment for a chronic cough which turned out to be due to metastatic lung cancer.

The Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) initially refused to investigate Botnick's complaint, stating that they were prevented from doing so because of a sealed settlement made with the school following litigation in Federal Court.

Botnick complained that a brief filed in the Federal Court of Appeals (Council on Chiropractic Education, Inc., et al. v. Life University, Inc., U.S. Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit, NO. 03-11020J) showed that CCE had known of the presence of many of the violations as early as 1992 yet took no action against the school until revoking its accreditation in 2002. USDOE found that CCE had indeed violated accreditation requirements by not addressing the complaint in a timely manner and ordered CCE to investigate it. CCE’s response to the agency indicated that the complaint was valid but claimed to have addressed it in accreditation proceedings. USDOE ordered CCE to provide documentation substantiating the corrections but CCE ignored the requests and the complaint remains unresolved.

The open complaints will be discussed at an open public hearing of the Accrediting Agency Evaluation Unit of the Office of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. The meeting will be used to formulate a recommendation to the Secretary of Education regarding whether or not the Council on Chiropractic Education should continue to be recognized.

If unsuccessful in its bid to gain continued recognition, CCE would be the second chiropractic educational body to lose recognition with USDOE. In 1993 the Straight Chiropractic Academic Standards Association (SCASA) lost recognition after Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander determined it to be an unreliable judge of the quality of education in its programs.

The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday June 6, 2006 at 8 a.m. EST at the Hilton Hotel located on 950 North Stafford Street in Arlington, Virginia. For more information, visit http://neck911usa.com/ .